I am beginning to experience just like the engineers at Audi's RS department were feeling a touch left out of this complete technique of creating audi a brand that aligns with tree-huggers and polar bear fanatics.
While the relaxation of the audi lineup gets increasingly friendly, hybridised, and dare I say-conscious-the RS boys have just been striking around the Nrburgring car park like unsupervised teenagers with get right of entry to to a CNC gadget. Sure, there is the occasional S3 update or a facelifted RS3 that makes the rounds, however via and huge, they have got been quiet. Too quiet.
At the same time as the RS Q8 has gotten a mid-existence facelift, it's far no regular update.
So, whilst their probably cobweb-riddled hotline in the end rang to inform them they needed to start paintings on a short update for the RS Q8, they overcompensated with the enthusiasm of a youngster left alone with their dad's credit score card. Keep in thoughts, this is, in essence, a mid-existence facelift. However if you've spent even ten mins inside the outgoing model, you'll recognise that is no normal update. This is a assertion.
You get the feel that the RS crew felt like they had something to prove. Maybe it changed into the growing recognition of the Lamborghini Urus Performante, a vehicle that shares its dna with the Q8 however wears tons louder garments and costs two times as lots at the membership. Perhaps it turned into BMW's XM or the Urus SE giving human beings the illusion that plug-in hybrids could also be fireplace-respiratory monsters. Some thing it was, the RS Q8 performance is the solution. And it's greater of a mic drop than a facelift.
The RS Q8 was constantly the underneath-the-radar bruiser within the volkswagen group's heavyweight SUV department.
Audi RS Q8 overall performance review: Why have to you care approximately a facelift?
The RS Q8 turned into always the underneath-the-radar bruiser inside the volkswagen organization's heavyweight SUV department. It become quieter than the Urus, cheaper, more mature, but arguably less a laugh on the restriction. This updated model has been downing double espressos and looking vintage DTM races on repeat.
The biggest headline? 641 horsepower and 850Nm of torque? That it is up from 600bhp and 800Nm? Nah, it's not it. Here's the kicker-it now laps the Nrburgring in 7 mins 36 seconds. This is six and a half seconds faster than the final RS Q8 and a tick beforehand of a few committed sports activities cars from just a few years ago. This element is formally no longer gambling games.
The RS Q8 performance remains powered by way of the 4.zero-litre twin-rapid V8 remains, but it's been retuned, remapped, and sharpened.
What changed? The four.zero-litre dual-rapid V8 remains, however it is been retuned, remapped, and sharpened. New lightweight pistons, up to date eu logic, bigger turbos and a revised exhaust gadget that doesn't simply roar-it snarls. audi claims it's 66kg lighter too, way to more aggressive use of carbon-fibre bits and a healthy eating plan that could've labored higher than your remaining one.
The 0-a hundred km/h time now sits at three.6 seconds, that is ridiculous while you don't forget this SUV weighs well over 2.three tonnes and seats 5 human beings in S-elegance-like consolation. What is extra ridiculous is the manner it supplies that power. The old RS Q8 had muscle. This one has malice
The RS Q8 nevertheless gets the wide stance, the gaping grille that would swallow small dogs entire, and more vents than a Roman bathhouse.
Visually, the adjustments are incremental, but the mind-set is not. You still get the wide stance, the gaping grille that might swallow small puppies entire, and more vents than a Roman bathhouse. However now, there is a greater sculpted chin, a reworked rear diffuser, and optionally available 23-inch wheels( like on our take a look at car) that seem like something you would discover on a CGI villain's spaceship. What is really worth noting right here is Audi's devil-may-care approach to hybridisation, aerodynamics or any of those other physics-driven technology that modern overall performance vehicles use to leverage their milk carton-sized motors. The RS Q8 is biblical, it is a pressure of nature. Other forces do not bend to its will; they shape in its wake. And that is something you get a sense of from the time this new RS alpha-SUV enters the body.
The lights is sharper, the strains extra chiselled, and the entirety looks as if it is been tightened up by means of a person who's been looking German engineering documentaries on loop. It's nevertheless recognisably an RS Q8, however the design now screams less "premium SUV" and more "apex predator in commercial enterprise informal."
The interior has a acquainted audi excellence, tuned, the whole thing feels tight, specific, and extremely highly-priced without being loud or intense.
Audi RS Q8 overall performance overview: layout and interiors
Step internal, and it is all familiar audi excellence-but turned up with just the proper quantity of testosterone. Alcantara. Carbon fibre. Elective purple stitching so excessive you would think the car's been bleeding overall performance data.
Alcantara coated gear lever subtly gives a touch of performance.
The dual touchscreen layout stays, which means that you'll still be wiping fingerprints off every floor like an obsessive-compulsive raccoon, however everything feels tight, unique, and extremely steeply-priced without being loud or severe. The seating role is spot on-high enough to claim dominance, low sufficient to feel like you're in control of some thing with real venom, and what stands out is how bendy the variety of adjustment is. rahul ought to discover a comfortable position right wherein he likes it, soaring inches from the headliner, and that i properly I may be almost at the seat rails, racecar style.
The whole thing within the interior feels tight, unique, and extremely costly with out being loud or severe.
You get massage seats, a Bang & Olufsen sound device which can simulate a Berlin nightclub, and enough rear seat legroom to make even the grumpiest back-seat driving force shut up. The boot? Large. Because even performance needs to be practical.
The sixty five-litre boot provides practicality to the overall performance-orientated SUV.
Audi RS Q8 overall performance assessment: overall performance, experience and managing
That is wherein the RS Q8 overall performance earns its stripes-and possibly scares some chiropractors. fire it up, and the V8 gurgle tells you without delay: "i'm now not right here on your ESG report." The throttle is razor-sharp, and the 8-velocity tiptronic gearbox does its activity with the smooth aggression of a hitman in a tuxedo.
Fire it up, and the V8 gurgle tells you straight away: "i'm now not here in your ESG file."
Audi's quattro all-wheel-pressure machine shuffles power around with spooky intelligence. That connecting you may throw the RS Q8 into corners a ways more difficult than physics says you must, and it'll come out the other facet like not anything took place. As the sway bar connects and disconnects electronically, it gives you most grip in a corner without sacrificing any articulation over bumps. There may be also a brand new torque splitter from the RS three, giving this leviathan actual rear-biased dynamics in sure pressure modes.
But what receives you is the variety. Usually, asking an SUV to be brief is quite enough, however asking it to be brief whilst somehow swallowing the shifting masses of the two.three-tonne frame. Trip first-rate is fairly forgiving in consolation mode, way to adaptive air suspension, however when you flick it into Dynamic, the car hunkers down, the guidance weights up, and the exhaust starts offevolved gargling lava. It is one of the few SUVS that makes you laugh maniacally in corners and nonetheless receives you home without a backache.
The revised exhaust system doesn't just roar-it snarls.
Braking power is absurd. With optional carbon ceramics, you can possibly forestall the auto just by way of obtrusive at the pedal.
Now allow's get to the spicy element. The audi RS Q8 overall performance, with all this newfound aggression, is available in at a rate that is almost half of what Lamborghini asks for a Urus Performante. Certain, the Lambo's were given aptitude, and a badge that makes valet men scramble tougher, however beneath the pores and skin, those are almost siblings.
Equal platform. Same engine block. Same gearbox. But here, you get a automobile it really is faster around the 'Ring, more understated, and loaded to the gills. The audi feels like the grown-up who went to the fitness center quietly each day, and now occurs to bench greater than its flashy cousin.
It's tough no longer to see the RS Q8 overall performance because the questioning man's Urus. Or extra appropriately, the enthusiast's center finger to badge snobbery.
Thelighting of the RS Q8 is sharper and the lines extra chiselled.
Audi RS Q8 overall performance evaluation: Verdict
The 2025 audi RS Q8 overall performance isn't only a facelift-it's a complete-blown uprising. It's a reminder that Audi's RS department, when provoked, can build monsters. Refined monsters. Nicely-dressed monsters. But monsters all the equal.
It blends performance that edges supercars with comfort that opponents limousines. It feels special, sounds menacing, and moves like physics forgot to expose up to the assembly. In an generation wherein overall performance SUVS are either too shouty (Urus), too unpleasant (XM), or too compromised (G63), this is the Goldilocks choose. It is simply right.
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